GUIDE · INDICATORS

IQ Bands

IQ Bands is the suite's trend engine: a sticky-regime envelope that answers one question — which side of this market are you supposed to be on — and refuses to change its answer until the evidence is printed. Flips only happen on a qualifying close, so the regime holds through pullbacks and the call survives the next bar. Fewer whipsaws, one call per trend, and an end that gets named when it actually arrives.

QQQ · 1D · IQ Bands
Regime · Trend ▲
QQQ, daily. The full loop: choppy regime early, the bear leg, a green flip that rides the spring rally, and a fresh bear flip into August — with exits, floating targets T1–T3 and the live dashboard on the right.
QQQ, daily. The full loop: choppy regime early, the bear leg, a green flip that rides the spring rally, and a fresh bear flip into August — with exits, floating targets T1–T3 and the live dashboard on the right.

Key features

Sticky regime detection.
The regime stays bull or bear until a close prints beyond the inner threshold zone. Touches and wicks don't count — only closes change the story.
Signals lock on close.
No repainting, ever. What the history shows is exactly what fired live, so a backtest by eye is an honest backtest.
Volatility-adaptive width.
The envelope breathes with realised volatility: quiet tape tightens it, fast tape widens it, and the flip threshold scales with it.
Alerts on everything.
One alert covers flips, target hits and trail stops — each message arrives with ticker, timeframe and level filled in.

The regime

Most trend tools flip whenever price crosses a line, which is why they call five reversals inside one real trend. IQ Bands treats the trend as a state, not a crossing. Inside the envelope sits a hidden threshold zone; while closes stay on the regime's side of it, nothing you see mid-bar matters. A candle can spike through the band intraday and close back inside — the regime doesn't blink.

When a close does print past the threshold, the flip is immediate and visible: the envelope changes color, the flip bar gets marked, and the previous regime is closed out with its final stats. That one-close discipline is what makes the envelope trustworthy on every timeframe from 30 minutes to weekly.

NVDA · 1D · IQ Bands
Flip · Long ▲
PLACEHOLDER — close-up of a single flip: three candles piercing the band intraday without flipping it, then the qualifying close that turns the envelope green. Annotate the wick-rejections vs the close.
Judge nothing mid-bar. The close is the verdict — everything before it is noise the engine is deliberately ignoring on your behalf.

Signals on the chart

The chart stays quiet on purpose: machinery is invisible, verdicts are visible. These are the marks you will actually see, and what each one is telling you.

Regime flip — long
A close printed past the upper threshold. The market's state changed from short to long on this timeframe.
Play: Stop fighting the move. Longs are with the regime from this bar forward; the basis line becomes your pullback reference.
Regime flip — short
A close printed past the lower threshold. The state changed from long to short.
Play: Longs are done. Stand aside or work the short side — counter-trend longs are now fighting the engine.
Basis retest
Price pulled back to the envelope's spine inside an intact regime.
Play: The highest-quality continuation entry the tool offers: the trend is intact and you are buying it at its average, not its extreme.
Stretch warning
Price broke a hidden volatility band inside the regime — extended, not reversed.
Play: Not an exit. Stop adding here, tighten what you must, and let the trail do the deciding.

Exits and targets

A trend call without an exit is half a tool. Once a regime opens, IQ Bands tracks two things for it: a trailing stop that ratchets behind the move and never gives ground back, and a ladder of floating targets that mark how far the regime has already carried from the flip.

The trail is the regime's own risk line — when price closes through it, the exit label prints with the result. The targets are context, not commands: a regime sitting at target three is late; a fresh flip that hasn't reached target one is early. Sizing decisions get easier when the chart tells you which of those you're looking at.

TSLA · 4H · IQ Bands
Trail · Active
PLACEHOLDER — exits shot: one full long regime with the trail ratcheting beneath it, floating targets 1-3 printing as the move extends, and the final exit label where the close crosses the trail.

The silent layer

Under the envelope, the engine keeps score of things it doesn't draw: hidden volatility bands, momentum agreement, and how many of the suite's conditions currently side with the regime. That score surfaces in two places — the stretch warnings above, and the confluence read the Analyst quotes when you ask about a ticker. The philosophy is deliberate: the machinery stays invisible so the chart stays readable, and the verdicts appear only when they're worth acting on.

Settings

Defaults are tuned on daily charts and need no touching to start. Inputs are grouped by effect, not by formula.

SettingDefaultWhat it changes
SensitivityBalancedHow much evidence a flip requires. Stickier means fewer whipsaws but later calls; faster means earlier calls that risk more noise.
Envelope widthAdaptiveHow far the bands sit from the basis. Adaptive tracks realised volatility; fixed multiples are there for purists.
Trail tightnessStandardHow close the ratchet follows. Tighter banks trends earlier; looser survives deeper pullbacks.
TargetsOn · 3 levelsThe floating target ladder. Display only — alerts fire on them either way.
Visual togglesAll onHide any drawing without touching the engine. Alerts keep computing with visuals off.

Playbook

The simplest complete loop, straight from how the tool is built: trade with the regime, enter at the basis, and let the trail take you out. On a fresh flip, take the starter with the flip bar and add only on basis retests. Past target two, stop adding entirely. When the stretch warning prints, tighten. When the exit label prints, you're flat — no debates with the tape.

The regime is per-timeframe. A daily long regime with a 30-minute short regime is not a contradiction — it's a pullback, and Triple Signals exist precisely to tell you when all the clocks agree again.

Alerts

Create one alert on IQ Bands, pick "Any alert() function call", and every event — flips, target hits, trail stops — arrives with the ticker, timeframe and level in the message. Push, email or webhook. The full walkthrough lives in the Alerts guide.